Tobacco industry globalization and global health governance: : towards an interdisciplinary research agenda

Shifting patterns of tobacco production and consumption, and the resultant disease burden worldwide since the late twentieth century prompted efforts to strengthen global health governance through adoption of the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control. While the treaty is rightfully considered an important achievement, to address a neglected public health issue through collective action, evidence suggests that tobacco industry globalization continues apace. In this article we provide a systematic review of the public health literature and reveal definitional and measurement imprecision, ahistorical timeframes, transnational tobacco companies and the state as the primary units and levels of analysis, and a strong emphasis on agency as opposed to structural power. Drawing on the study of globalization in international political economy and business studies, we identify opportunities to expand analysis along each of these dimensions. We conclude that this expanded and interdisciplinary research agenda provides the potential for fuller understanding of the dual and dynamic relationship between the tobacco industry and globalization. Deeper analysis of how the industry has adapted to globalization over time, as well as how the industry has influenced the nature and trajectory of globalization, is essential for building effective global governance responses

Robust image analysis with sparse representation on quantized visual features

10.1109/TIP.2012.2219543IEEE Transactions on Image Processing223860-871IIPR

There’s No Beer without a Smoke: Community Cohesion and Neighboring Communities’ Effects on Organizational Resistance to Antismoking Regulations in the Dutch Hospitality Industry

This study highlights the importance of communities in explaining organizational resistance to institutional pressures. Examining the active resistance of small bars to smoking regulations in 427 Dutch municipalities (communities), we argue that the likelihood of organizational resistance to institutional pressure from a powerful actor is affected by the social cohesion of the focal community. In addition, we propose a contiguity effect that emphasizes the broader social context of the community—its neighboring communities—as a source for support or information about appropriate ways to resist such pressures. By incorporating community attributes to account for organizations’ heterogeneous responses to institutional pressure, the study advances current institutional scholarship and demonstrates empirically how such a theory can help explain the success of relatively weak organizational actors’ resistance in the face of strong institutional pressures by the state—that is, as a result of their embeddedness in a community